Thin Lives (Donati Bloodlines #3)

by Bethany-Kris

  Emma—his uncle’s wife.

  Affonso was always quick to pass over the details of Las Vegas—and the marriage that followed—whenever Calisto asked. He still wasn’t even sure if he had also gone to Vegas when Affonso did, but he assumed that he had, considering he had a poker chip, and people assured him that he had, in fact, gone to Vegas.

  It probably came from his stay.

  But why that casino?

  Why this chip?

  Calisto wasn’t the type of person to hold onto things for no reason. The chip had to have meant something to him in a private way, especially considering how insignificant it seemed.

  Was it insignificant?

  His mind drew a blank.

  His chest grew tight.

  Each time he thought about something like the poker chip, Calisto was left with more questions than answers. No one ever questioned him on the poker chip.

  Calisto didn’t bother to ask others about the chip because from what he knew, he had been the only person left behind in Vegas to keep an eye on Affonso’s soon-to-be bride. How would they know the significance of the chip or why he had kept it?

  They weren’t inside Calisto’s fucked up mind.

  A mind that failed him daily.

  Still, he kept the chip on him because like the rosary, it did something for him. Not quite the same thing as the rosary, but something just as important and poignant. Where the rosary almost set him back into a time that he could remember, when he held onto the poker chip, he was suspended.

  Suddenly, unwaveringly, stopped in time.

  The poker chip was nothing more than a simple item. A thing he must have picked up along the way, but decided to keep for one reason or another.

  But it wasn’t an item that had been found on him.

  It was an item that was brought to him.

  Yet he knew—somehow—that he had been the one to have it first.

  The tighter he held it in his palm, the better he felt. That was how he knew it was a part of that one piece he was still missing—a piece he just knew he had to look for.

  His memories weren’t going to give it to him. No one else had the answers. It was something Calisto was going to have to do on his own.

  Church seemed like a good place to start.

  Calisto

  Calisto was just pulling out onto the highway when his phone rang in the cup holder. He wasn’t as nervous driving in a car now as he had been when he first started after the accident. Still, he now took more precautions when driving, and took the road slower no matter the weather. Keeping his eye on the road and one hand on the wheel, he reached for the phone and put it to his ear as he answered.

  “Ciao?”

  “Cal,” came the familiar greeting on the other end.

  Calisto smiled. “Zio.”

  “Beautiful day.”

  “It’s not too bad for September,” Calisto agreed. “The leaves haven’t started falling yet.”

  “I have nothing immediate today, correct?”

  Calisto did a quick run through of Affonso’s meetings and business for the upcoming days. As his consigliere, it was Calisto’s duty to make sure Affonso ran on time everywhere he went. He was also his uncle’s middle man where la famiglia was concerned, keeping men happy, and everything peaceful. Calisto was the go-between for those wanting a seat in front of the boss.

  “Nothing today,” Calisto said. “There is that meeting tomorrow with Dante Marcello and his wife.”

  Affonso grunted something under his breath, clearly unhappy.

  It wasn’t Dante that Affonso had the problem with, Calisto knew. It was the man’s wife. Calisto hadn’t even been aware Dante Marcello had gotten married, since his lost memories went back farther than even that event, but he had been quickly caught up to speed by Ray, Affonso’s underboss, when Dante called, wanting a meeting with Affonso.

  But Dante’s wife … well, she was a special breed.

  A Queen Pin, from what Calisto understood. The woman dealt drugs to the highest profile people she could get her claws into. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, if it weren’t for the fact her Cosa Nostra Don husband allowed her to work within his own family, too.

  Women were not to be involved in the business. Dante didn’t seem to believe he had to follow that rule where his wife was concerned.

  Honestly, Calisto didn’t know what the damn problem was. The woman made money—a lot of it. She was good at her job, obviously. It wasn’t as if her husband had given her a button into the family, and she surely wasn’t like most other men’s wives.

  The girl was a dealer—high-class, high-paid.

  He just didn’t see the issue.

  “Is she really as difficult as they say?” Calisto asked, chuckling.

  “More so,” Affonso muttered. “She doesn’t seem to understand her place as a woman because she believes her position is just as good as a man’s.”

  Calisto frowned at his uncle’s words. “Is that all you have a problem with, the fact she’s a woman in a position you think should belong to a man?”

  “Entirely.”

  That seemed … wrong.

  Considering what Calisto had learned about this Catrina Marcello, she had more than proven she could pull her weight in the drug sector of the crime business.

  The fact that she had a vagina hadn’t exactly hindered her.

  “Even if she’s good at what she does?” Calisto asked quietly.

  “Women are not meant to be in our business, never mind working alongside a man like she’s just as much of a boss as he is while cooking his food and sleeping in his bed,” Affonso replied frankly. “It’s … unnatural.”

  Or perhaps Catrina and Dante Marcello’s ability to act as a husband and wife as well as a Don and Queen Pin side by side was just something that was out of Affonso’s realm of understanding. Calisto wasn’t sure if his uncle disapproved, or was simply confused about the dynamics between the man and woman.

  It wasn’t like it mattered.

  Another man and woman’s choices were not everyone else’s business.

  If it worked for them, who cared?

  “Do you want me to cancel the meeting tomorrow? I can make some kind of excuse for you that Dante will find acceptable, but only if I give him a bit of notice. That, or I can go in place of you. I’ve known him for years—he would be comfortable with me showing in your place.”

  Affonso hummed and hawed before finally saying, “No, he’ll have a fit and say it was disrespectful of me.”

  Which it would be.

  Dante wouldn’t be wrong to call Affonso out on it.

  Shirking a meeting with another boss never ended well, really. It certainly wouldn’t help Affonso’s case, given that Dante was the boss of the Marcello Cosa Nostra, which dominated the streets of New York, and the Commission.

  It wasn’t good for a man to piss off a man higher in power than himself, even if that man was twenty years his junior and had a wife he disapproved of.

  Sometimes, in Cosa Nostra, it was not all about age and experience, but rather, the amount of power a man had. Dante Marcello had far more pull power in his pinky finger than Affonso had in his whole famiglia.

  Calisto respected his uncle as a boss, but bigger families made the calls when the time came for it. And therefore, he had more respect for Dante when he sat down with the man.

  “Smart choice,” Calisto said, trying to hold back the amusement in his tone.

  “Still irritates me to no end,” Affonso replied. “No bother, that wasn’t my point for calling you this morning.”

  “Then what was?”

  “Where are you right now?”

  Calisto checked the street he’d just pulled onto and rattled it off to Affonso. “Why?”

  “Curious.”

  “Heading west right now.”

  “Why are you going in that direction?”

  “I wanted to grab some breakfast and then go chat with Father Day,” Calisto said, hoping his uncle
wouldn’t pry more.

  He shouldn’t have bothered at all.

  “Why?” Affonso pressed.

  Calisto sighed, knowing damn well Affonso wouldn’t be pleased that he was seeking out answers to his lost memories again. “It’s been a while since I chatted with him.”

  Affonso was quiet for a long while before finally saying, “You always were close to the priest. He’s been your confessor for …”

  “Years,” Calisto finished for his uncle.

  It was one of the reasons why Calisto wanted to go see Father Day. If things had been going on in his life, emotional upheavals or other things that made him question his own morals, Father Day would be the man Calisto went to.

  He didn’t have the first clue if that’s what had been happening to him leading up to his accident, but without a doubt, his mother’s death would have been difficult on him. It was now—he couldn’t even remember her passing.

  Father Day should have answers for at least some questions Calisto found himself wondering about on a daily basis.

  Affonso cleared his throat, bringing Calisto out of his thoughts.

  “I was hoping he could fill in a few blanks for me, especially about my mother,” Calisto said.

  “You know how your mother died. Her heart gave out because of her disease. We visited the grave, Cal.”

  Calisto rapped his fingers on the steering wheel, hearing the annoyance in Affonso’s tone as clear as day. Each time this subject was brought up between them, Affonso became irritated and cold. It was almost as if he wanted Calisto to simply forget about it all and move on with what he had left.

  He just couldn’t do that.

  “Not Ma, exactly,” Calisto said. “More me. I want to know about me during that time.”

  Affonso grunted, and a glass clinked on the other end of the line. “You were … distraught.”

  That sounded right.

  But it still felt like a lot was left out.

  “I think …” Calisto’s brow furrowed as he wondered if he should admit to the one memory he knew he had leading up to the accident.

  “What, my boy?”

  Affonso’s gentle question made Calisto think that his uncle was simply irritated with his questions because maybe he wanted him to be better. Happy, even. And Calisto was focusing on things that were no longer important because they had already happened.

  So, he chose to tell him.

  “I think I was at the church that night,” Calisto said.

  “You were there earlier in the day. The Irish, remember?”

  Calisto knew what his uncle was talking about, but remembering was a whole other matter. No, he didn’t remember having a meeting with the New Jersey Irish mob boss, but apparently he had and refused to allow anyone else to come as well.

  Affonso blamed the accident that followed on the Irish boss.

  A war was still raging between their families on the streets.

  “Not then. Ray said that was in the daytime,” Calisto explained.

  Affonso sucked in air through his teeth, and a chair squeaked. “Keep going.”

  “I remember being there that night, zio. At the church. I was angry about something, and Father Day wanted to talk to me about it, but I pushed him off.”

  “Cal …”

  “And then I remember being on the highway right after, just before my car was run off the road.”

  Silence answered his statements back.

  Calisto wasn’t all that surprised at his uncle’s lack of a response. He had kept his only regained memory a secret from everyone, other than his private doctor who was charged with monitoring and recording any returning memories he might have.

  It just didn’t feel normal for Calisto to be like he was, so overturned, unbalanced, and confused over one memory that he didn’t understand. He wanted to, and when he did, he planned on opening up to others about it.

  “And that is all you have remembered?” Affonso asked.

  The question was posed quietly, but it still rang with an undercurrent that Calisto couldn’t quite decipher.

  “That’s all,” Calisto confirmed.

  Affonso was quiet for a long while.

  A heavy weight rested on Calisto’s shoulders the longer he was forced to wait for a reply from his uncle. Affonso was so adamant that Calisto leave what was behind him in the past where it belonged. He repeatedly assured him that nothing was important enough for him to be chasing it when he could be moving forward in his life.

  Calisto couldn’t agree.

  His mind was saying there were things he needed to know, or he wouldn’t be able to let his curiosity go entirely. His heart felt different every single day that he walked around in a dazed bubble, wondering where in the hell his life was.

  Because this didn’t feel like his life.

  Calisto knew it was, but it was still missing something. He was without an important piece to his puzzle, but he didn’t even know what that piece was.

  How could he explain that?

  He felt crazy!

  “Cal?” Affonso said.

  It took Calisto far too long to realize his uncle had said his name at least three times. While his focus was on the road he was driving down, his attention was somewhere else entirely.

  Somewhere on a lost piece of him.

  “Yeah, zio?”

  “That night—right before—it’s all you remember?”

  Calisto scowled. “Didn’t I just say that?”

  “I wanted to be sure, that’s all.”

  “Yes, obviously. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be trying to find out more.”

  Affonso chuckled dryly. “I suppose.”

  “I know you want me to focus on the future,” Calisto said quietly. “And to leave all that alone so that I can be happy.”

  “Of course, Cal.”

  “I need to know what I’m missing, zio.”

  Affonso sighed heavily. “Oh, Calisto.”

  “What?”

  Didn’t the man understand?

  “You’re missing nothing,” Affonso said, firm and sure. “Absolutely nothing.”

  That couldn’t be true.

  Calisto still felt far too empty.

  Alone, even when he wasn’t.

  That was something.

  And something wasn’t nothing.

  Calisto balanced a bag of bagels and muffins in one hand, a coffee in the other, and bit the rim of his own to-go cup of coffee as he used his back to push the church doors open. He figured that since he was planning on grabbing something to eat on his way over to visit Father Day, and he knew the man spent early morning to late at night at the church, the priest might appreciate a fresh coffee and food to go with it.

  No doubt, Father Day brought his own meals, but it was the nice thing to do. People were always more willing to talk when their hands and mouths were filled with something.

  The front hall of the church was empty, but that wasn’t unusual for a Tuesday morning. Unless a wedding was happening, the church was typically devoid of parishioners throughout the week, except for Wednesdays, Sundays, and the occasional Saturday service or funeral. Their church wasn’t a large congregation, either, so Father Day was capable of running and caring for the place himself with a few volunteers who came in to clean and such.

  Calisto called out for the priest as he walked into the main hall, only to find the pews empty and the altar just as vacant. Unfortunately, with the rim of the coffee cup still in his mouth, it came out as a muffled shout that didn’t make much noise at all.

  He stuck the bag of food under his arm, grabbing the coffee out of his mouth.

  “Father Day?”

  Nothing.

  Calisto’s call echoed back to his spot.

  Usually, the priest would be in the main hall, sitting in one of the front pews, praying or going over papers. Or, he might be up on the altar, preparing another sermon. He had an office in the back of the church, along with the confessional room and another two private quiet rooms f
or people to use during funerals or weddings.

  But the priest rarely stayed shut away in his office.

  Calisto remembered him saying once that anything he could do behind a desk, he could do sitting in a pew or standing at the pulpit.

  Careful not to drop the coffees on the carpeted aisle between the pews—as it was the only place in the church with carpeting—Calisto made his way toward the back of the church. He called for Father Day a few more times, still not receiving any response.

  Something strange settled in Calisto’s stomach.

  A weight dropping.

  Father Day would never leave his church unattended. If he weren’t available, or gone from the parish, he would lock it up. Yet, Calisto had found it unlocked and all the lights above were on.

  It wasn’t right.

  Father Day’s office was at the very end of the back hallway. From the very mouth of the hall, Calisto instantly knew something was wrong.

  The priest’s office door was opened just a crack.

  Father Day would never leave his door like that—it would be either opened all the way, signaling he was available for anyone to walk in at any time should they need to, or closed entirely to say he was busy or with someone.

  Never cracked.

  Calisto, instinctively, picked up his pace. He didn’t realize his hands had started trembling until a bit of hot coffee splashed on his fingers from the opening on the cover.

  He barely felt a thing.

  Without a thought, he kicked the office door open.

  The bag of bagels and muffins fell from his arm. Coffee spilled to the floor.

  Calisto took a step back from the sight in the office, disbelieving and unsure all at the same time. He watched as the brown, murky color of the spilled coffee seeped along the hardwood floor of the office, mixing in with where a trail of red had pooled right in the middle of the floor.

  That trail of red led up to where it was dripping down from an oak desk.

  Calisto swallowed.

  His fists clenched hard enough that his fingernails broke the skin of his palm.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Slow and steady, red droplets fell.

  Sickness filled Calisto’s throat.

  He’d seen dead bodies before.